Italian “Sondergötter.”

H. J. Rose

doi:10.2307/296227

Italian “Sondergötter.”

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012

H. J. Rose

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Since Usener put prominently forward the theory of Sondergötter, the idea has been subjected to trenchant negative criticism by two experts in the fields of Greek and Roman religion respectively, Farnell and Wissowa. The former protests, and rightly so, against the cheerful assumption that, whenever a deity has a name describing a function, “Saviour,” “Queen,” “Victory,” for example, we should regard him or her as a primitive Sondergott; since many examples teach us that such figures are often the products of a developed polytheism. He would suggest, as a better test than the name, the non-anthropomorphic conception of the god, or rather daimon, in the minds of his worshippers. Thus he clears the field of Greek religion of a great many heroes and daimones who, whatever their names may be, are too developed and too late to have any claim to represent primitive thought. Wissowa attacks the question from a somewhat different standpoint. He sees in the formidable list of Roman Sondergötter nothing more recondite than Varro's attempt to arrange all possible deities under “di certi,” or at most the artificial “indigitamenta” of the pontifices which, in accordance with “die peinliche Genauigkeit in der Aufstellung der römischen Gebetsformeln,” endeavoured to call upon whatever god was addressed under all the names which applied to the actual petition.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 3 , November 1913 , pp. 233 - 241

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/296227 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © H. J. Rose1913. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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^{page 233 note 1} Götternamen, pp. 73, ff.

^{page 233 note 2} Anthrop. Essays to Tylor, 81, ff.

^{page 233 note 3} Ges. Abh. 304, ff.

^{page 233 note 4} p. cxxxvi, Henzen : cf. 147.

^{page 234 note 1} I do not believe in the close connexion between Anna Perenna and Mars postulated by Usener (Rhein. Mus. xxx, 224) and Roscher (Lex. s.v. Mars, 2401, 29). For Genita Mana as an independent deity see Plut. Q.R. 52.

^{page 234 note 2} Augustine, C.D. xviii, 15, cf. Plin. N.H. xvii, 50.

^{page 234 note 3} Aug. C.D. iv, 21.

^{page 235 note 1} Paus. vi, xx, 15.

^{page 235 note 2} Bull. Corr. Hell, xxiii, p. 611.

^{page 235 note 3} Farnell, op. cit. p. 90.

^{page 235 note 4} Omens and Superstitions of Southern India, P. 174.

^{page 236 note 1} op. cit. p. 119.

^{page 236 note 2} For a similar usage of the Fratres Arvales, cf. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience, etc. appendix v. So in official Hinduism sacrificial implements have long been worshipped: see Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 154. The ayudha pūja is as old as the Rig-Veda, ibid. 155.

^{page 236 note 3} Fasti, vi, 311.

^{page 237 note 1} Cité antique, 24, 210.

^{page 237 note 2} Georg. i, 304.

^{page 237 note 3} Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i, 57.

^{page 237 note 4} ibid. 466.

^{page 237 note 5} Aesch. Sept. 529. The other two examples show the meaning of this. For a historical example cf. Plut. Pelop. 29.

^{page 237 note 6} cf. Levy-Brühl, Les jonctions mentales, p. 34.

^{page 237 note 7} Gell. i, xxi, 4.

^{page 237 note 8} Paulus, epit. Fest. p. 115M; Polyb. i, xxv, 8–9.

^{page 237 note 9} Polyb. ibid.

^{page 238 note 1} Livy, i, xxiv, 8–9.

^{page 238 note 2} Livy, xliii, 9.

^{page 238 note 3} Paul, epit. Fest. p. 92, s.v. Feretrius.

^{page 238 note 4} Iuppiter Feretrius might put in a claim to this position if we derive his name from ferire: see Carter, de Deorum Romanorum Cognominibus, p. 43; but I hold this etymology to be false.

^{page 238 note 5} Q.R. 27.

^{page 239 note 1} Anthropology and the Classics, last essay; repeated in substance in Religious Exptrience of the Roman People.

^{page 239 note 3} Aug. C.D. vi, 9.

^{page 239 note 4} Franzer, Golden Bough ³, p. 168.

^{page 239 note 5} Agric. 139.

^{page 240 note 1} op. cit. 83, 141.

^{page 240 note 2} Automatia, Nep. Timol. 4; Plut. Timol. 36; Asebeia and Paranomia, Polyb. xviii, iv, 10.

^{page 241 note 1} Polyb. iii, xxii, 3.

^{page 241 note 2} e.g. vi, lvi, 6.

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